Saturday, April 24, 2021

Dancin' Drew Is Back!

It was another week of celebrations and much for us to be thankful for, too!  Moose Patti joined us for Zoom, and on Thursday we celebrated Drew's return AND Kate's Birthday!  We had nice trips to enjoy beautiful weather, and just enjoyed being together, though still in our split groups.  Read on to hear more about each joyful day!

Tuesday

Tuesday was an awesome day, it's just that our camera lens had a big smudge on it that we didn't notice until Lisa was working on the blog at the end of the day!  So, we're just going to use 4 of today's photos so we can document some of the joy from the day!

During Zoom, we were surprised to see Moose Patti join us all the way from Luray, Virginia, where she is enjoying a vacation!  So excited to hear from her that the Women of the Moose golf tournament, an important fundraiser for The Arc of GW, will be on Saturday, August 7th this year.  Save the date!  More details coming soon!  🏌🏌🏌

We spent time outside after Zoom.  Everyone loves walking and talking with Lilly, who will end her time with us next week and then graduate from CNU!

Kevin was missing from our group picture because he was around the corner with a basketball.  So, he gets his own video!  He likes to practice dribbling.  Good job, Kevin!


Even though Kate isn't with us on Tuesday/Wednesday, we celebrated her birthday with her favorite lunch, pasta, and cupcakes!  (Thanks Patrick and Alexis for baking them and Liz for frosting them!)  These good friends also made nice cards for Kate, which she will get on Thursday.

  

We assembled 132 PowerSlide doors for Eaton after Choice Time!  We are so efficient, which is a good thing.  Carol is going on vacation Thursday so she wanted us to "crank 'em out" so we can drop them off at Eaton tomorrow when we travel to New Quarter Park!  This picture was taken near the end of the assembly time.  Kevin and Cameron had been working at this table all along, putting the screws and bolts in the doors, while everyone else did other steps.  As they finished the other steps, the doors piled up at this station, so most of the gang chipped in to finish the task!


Wednesday

Get ready for more pictures today!  We cleaned the smudge off the camera lens. πŸ‘πŸ“·

First up, here's Patrick with cards for his mom.  She had surgery this week to be a kidney donor.  We think she is very brave, and also kind to do this. πŸ’œ  We're happy to report she's doing very well.  We wish her a speedy recovery! πŸ˜


There was a threat of stormy weather for around lunch time, but we took a chance and made our way to New Quarter Park at midmorning.  The sun was blazing just as pretty as it pleased, and the temperature was just right.  🌞  We set up a few games to play and had the park to ourselves.  Sam, Liz, and Nancy played ring toss, and turns out, Nancy is really good at it!


To the basketball court was where Cameron, Patrick, and Alexis headed.  Between the three of them, they hit quite a few shots!


Kevin and Laura tossed the large disk.  They were glad it wasn't too windy.  


After playing our games, we spent some time on the playground equipment, as there were still no other visitors (little kids) at the park!  This is a large equipment with several features we can enjoy.  Here, Kevin is crossing bars, much to the delight of his friends (cheering off camera).  We had to encourage him to go "slow and steady" since he tends to be a speedy guy! πŸ‘πŸ‘


No explanation needed for this picture of Alexis, Laura, and Cameron.  The sign says it all!


It may only be about 8 feet high, but this is a pretty realistic rock climbing wall Sam is scaling!  πŸ‘€


We asked Nancy if she had an "inner 6 year old" who would like to slide and she said, "Oh, yes."  We love, love, love this!  (She said "Weeeeee" as she descended!)


We ate lunch after all of that playing around, and then posed for this group picture before squeezing in a 20 minute walk along the asphalt path.  We made it back to the vans just as the first raindrops were starting.  When we got back to AFCC, we hurried inside before the winds howled and the skies fell open!  It only lasted about 10 minutes though, and then the sun was back out.


At 2:00 we joined Bette Faye's Arc Zoom session to catch up with the W&M Baseball Team!  Our guys asked lots of good questions and really enjoyed hearing about what the team players have been up to during Covid.  The players were adamant in stating that they cannot wait for The Arc to be able to have another game night with them!  (We can't either!) ⚾⚾⚾

 
We are all about choice at the AoA, and Sam decided he would rather practice yoga with Jaime (online) as he usually does on Wednesday afternoons, rather than join the Zoom.  He was happy to be set up just outside of the room, and enjoyed his private yoga session very much!  We're happy that he made the right choice for himself!


Bird update:  We haven't seen any more hummingbirds since the first one a couple of weeks ago.  We remain hopeful they will come.  Our usual group of wrens, cardinals, woodpeckers, tufted titmouses, chickadees, and house finches (shown here), plus a few we aren't sure of the type, continue to eat as much birdseed as we put out for them.  They give us a lot of pleasure as we watch them interact...and the squirrels are fun to watch, too! 


Thursday

We had two big highlights today...we'll get to Kate's birthday later.  First up, Kate was DJ and when she played "Uptown Funk" the place went nuts.  Dancin'Drew came back today, and it's plain to see that he hasn't lost any of his moves during the pandemic!  Welcome back, Drew!


Besides being Drew's return and Kate's birthday, it was also Earth Day!  That and Kate's birthday were our Zoom themes today.  Check out our Zoomies...including Moose Patti who joined us again from her vacay in the mountains!   We were so happy she chose to join us instead of all the things she could have been doing...taking a hike, listening to the birds, drinking another cup of coffee while staring at the view, sleeping in........πŸ˜„!!  

 
Happy Earth Day!


We played Earth Day Bingo during Zoom.  Look at the birthday girl in her special crown!  We also danced to her favorite songs and sang to her before signing off.  It was a fun Zoom today!


Before coming back to the AoA this week, Drew visited his sister Alex in Florida last week.  It had been over a year since he traveled.  He had a fantastic time being with Alex and her boyfriend, Scott.  They were able to attend a major league baseball game, and one of the team managers gave Drew an official baseball!  Drew shared pictures and told us about the game (thanks, Mom Donna, for the notes 😘), which we could tell he clearly enjoyed very much!


Lunch today was pasta with meat sauce, at Kate's request.  We celebrated Garlic Day (April 19) with garlic toast, and we added a fresh spinach and veggie salad.  The cupcakes her parents dropped off were so tasty!  We sang again, too!  


At the end of the day, we watched a couple of episodes of shows from waaaay back on the Disney Channel.  Kate, and most of our guys, grew up with these shows, and they LOVED watching them today!  We never heard so much laughing and reminiscing!

 
There was one surprise left for the birthday girl.  Kate's friend, Sandra, arrived to pick her up at dismissal and surprised her with flowers and a balloon!  We hope you enjoyed your birthday with us today, Kate!  It was a lot of fun!


Friday

We were busy in our "card factory" on Friday morning.  Devin's mom had shoulder surgery last week, so we wanted to send her some cheery get well greetings.  Hope she likes pink!


Next, this group made their contributions to our cards for Kiley, who Zoomed in from Minnesota to practice yoga with us last week.  This gorgeous set of "magical words" cards was started by the Wednesday group.  We finished and got them in the mail today.  Kiley is going to love them!  πŸ’›


FINALLY!  It was a gorgeous day for this group's travel.  (They always seem to get the cloudy/rainy days for outings...and never complain!)  We were noting how quiet the school seemed today with the students being at home, and it made us realize that New Quarter Park, with its amazing playground, might be busy today.  So, we came up with another plan, and ended up at Freedom Park and the Williamsburg Botanical Garden.  We harvested radishes and spinach!  


The garden is absolutely beautiful this spring, and if you haven't checked it out in a while, you should!


The "Plants with A Purpose" Honor Box Sale begins April 24th and runs through May 31.  This is a great chance to pick up some new plants!  Many of them are divisions made from the WBG's gardens, and many are native to the Virginia Coastal Plain area, so they should thrive in your garden!  


For more infomation about the "Plants with a Purpose" Honor Box Plant Sale, click here.  🌸🌿🌱


After enjoying our lunch in the warm sunshine at Freedom Park, we drove over to the Colonial Parkway where a portion of it is closed to vehicular traffic today through Sunday so folks can walk and bike on it!  


We parked at Jamestown Settlement and took a nice stroll on the parkway as far as the first bridge.  We spotted tadpoles in the muddy water, and saw a couple of blue herons fly by.


On our way back to the vans, we spotted a bluebird of happiness on the stop sign.  A reminder to us all to stop and enjoy our beautiful outdoors on days like today!


As we posed for a picture by the fountain at the Settlement, the gang said they hope we can come back to visit the museum once indoor field trips are allowed.  We always enjoy a visit to Jamestown!


Back at our AFCC garden, Michelle and Drew took care of adding more soil and watering our thriving potato plants!  Master Gardener Linda helped us plant them about 5 weeks ago, in a "grow bag" that a friend of hers was about to toss!  We also planted sugar snap peas, but they aren't doing as well.  We're going to try planting more pea seeds and keeping them inside next week...


We also filled the bird feeders with the last of the birdseed Devin's family donated to us in March.  So, imagine our surprise when we found 2 more forty-pound bags of birdseed at our back door when we got back from our travels.  Thank you, Bobowicz family!  Our birds do love to eat at our feeders!   And check out Devin's muscles after he loaded the two bags onto a scooter so we could move them to the storage closet!


So blessed are we to have such active and fun weeks at the Arc of Abilities.  


Thank you to The Arc of Greater Williamsburg's Board of Directors, and Executive Director, Pam, for making this experience possible for us!  Thanks also to JCC Parks & Recreation for partnering with us and providing the AFCC space, and to Tracy for being our liaison with Parks & Rec.  And, thank you to our very supportive families and friends for all you do for us.

Here are our plans for next week:

Tuesday / Thursday:  We'll finish our April birthday celebrations with a Burger Bash for lunch for Devin and Lilly!  Thank you to Devin's family for providing burgers and buns for us!!  We'll also say good-bye to Lilly as she gets ready to graduate in a couple of weeks.  We hope she won't be a stranger... In other activities, we'll complete a bit of work for Eaton, and ZOOM with our at home friends!  Tuesday's topic will be Babe Ruth Day/Baseball and Thursday's will be Happy Birthday, Devin and Lilly!

Wednesday / Friday:  We finished learning about the continents a couple of weeks ago, and today we will study the oceans.  We'll also have another lesson on dolphins (some work we didn't finish on Dolphin Day).  The weather forecast predicts more beautiful days, so we'll take a trip to nearby Colonial Williamsburg, by request of the gang, to "look for animals."  Bring a bag lunch and don't forget to dress to stretch for yoga, too!  We'll also welcome Tracy to help out as Carol is on vacation this week!  Thanks, Tracy!

Enjoy the weekend,

Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang









Saturday, April 17, 2021

But first...Laura!

 

This week we were excited for many reasons!  We got to celebrate Becky's birthday on Zoom and Sam's with a bbq luncheon at the center.  There was a lot of Eaton work to do, including some exciting new tasks we had to learn.  And...I mean, "But first" (to quote her), we welcomed Laura back on Tuesday morning!  We are thrilled that she is back, and now we eagerly away Drew's soon return (he's visiting his sister in Florida for the first time since Covid).  Once he is back, all 15 current associates will be attending in person, though still on the split days.  We're ok with that...it means we are getting closer to being back to full steam!  Here's a look at our amazing week...

Tuesday

After welcoming Laura back and singing/dancing to our morning warm up, we checked last week's blog and then it was time to see our Zoomies!  Becky, the AFCC Gang, Michelle, Devin, and Abraham were on hand today as we celebrated Becky's birthday!


It's been a long year and one month since we've been with Becky in person, and this is her second virtual birthday party with us. πŸ₯³πŸŽˆ  Here, the AFCC group waved birthday flags and cheered for her when she popped up on the Zoom screen!


Last week, everyone made Becky a special birthday card that featured something on the front that we know she likes.  It was Liz's idea, and she made a card featuring Becky's favorite president, Thomas Jefferson, on the front.  Other cards featured Becky's love of Ohio State and Cleveland Browns football, the beach at the Outer Banks, The Arc of GW, swinging on her front porch, and her love of teaching.  She loved each and every one of them and said they would all remind of her how special we are to her.  Awwww, Becky!  We πŸ’— you!  Happy Birthday!!!


After Zoom, we prepared for our trip to Freedom Park and the Botanical Garden.  April 14th is National Gardening Day, so we planned to celebrate by checking the beds that our master gardener friends have been taking care of. 


It was close to noon when we arrived, so we ate lunch first.  The sun decided to stay mostly behind the clouds at this point, but it wasn't too chilly, and we enjoyed having lunch together in the fresh air.


The garden looked beautiful!  In the few short weeks (a month) since we last visited, so much has popped out and there is green...and pink, yellow, red, white, and purple everywhere!  In the trellis bed, Nan, Liz, Nancy, and Patrick found cabbage, spinach, carrots, radishes, parsley, sage, and lovely violas growing.  We picked some violas and tomorrow we're going to try sugaring them to put on Sam's birthday pie!  They are edible, you know?!


Kevin and Alexis took a short break at the butterfly bed.  It was starting to feel a little warmer and the sun was out more by now!


Sam showed Laura the fairy garden.  She was asking if Lisa knew there was a little fairy flying around the bird cage in front of her.  Look how nicely the succulents are filling in now!


Back at the center we had time for a lesson on the magnificent number 12!  Why the number 12??  Because April 12 in National For Twelves Day!  It is sort of to honor football's "12th player," the fan, but we used it to brainstorm a nice list of things that are represented by 12, or a dozen, and to find how many ways we could divide twelve cubes into equal groups.  Sam found one way:  4 groups of 3!


Then, Liz said, "Please don't play that song about the twelve days of Christmas!"  So, of course, we did!  Liz, Alexis, and Sam jokingly plugged their ears, but Carol, Laura, and Nancy sang along!  What a silly ending to the day!


Wednesday

This morning we sugared the violas.  Nancy had never done this, and she thought it was an unusual thing to do!  She did a good job brushing egg white on the petals before we sprinkled them with sugar.


Patrick also gave it a try.  After brushing them with egg white, he sprinkled sugar on top.  We then set them aside to dry until lunch time, when we planned to decorate Sam's birthday pie with them!


These two were happy to be reunited!  Heike and Laura love to joke around with one another, each blaming the other for being "late!"  


We had a lot of Eaton work to do today.  Elizabeth helped Kevin unpack little plastic pieces; she cut the packages open so he could more easily remove the parts.


In the back of this shot, Sam was unpacking breaker box parts.  In the middle, Patrick was doing inventory.  In the front, Alexis and Nan were unwrapping parts that would be used on the breaker boxes.


Here, Laura is in the background working with Park and Rec's Lexi on unpacking, Nancy is doing inventory, and Carol pulled Alexis and Liz to work on the new assembly task with the gray breaker boxes.


Happy Birthday to Sam!  He was excited because his family sponsored our luncheon today (and Friday) of bbq sandwiches with chips, baked beans, and delicious chocolate pie!  Thank you to his family for a yummy lunch!!  We were just as excited as Sam was, because we worked up an appetite with all of that Eaton work!  Thanks from Sam's family, and us, to Lexi's Gdad for cooking the bbq for us!  It was a great batch today! πŸ˜‹   


The birthday boy got the first piece of chocolate pie, and then he and his friends were good sports about getting a birthday photo taken before pie could be eaten!  Sam's friends, from both groups, made the thoughtful cards on the board.  It was a great party, and even though he won't be here, we'll do it again for the Friday group in Sam's honor!


Our violas didn't dry completely, but they still added a pretty touch to the pie!


April 14th is National Dolphin Day, so Liz had us covered!  She showed pics and a souvenir t-shirt from a trip she took to Clearwater, Florida a few years ago.  She got to visit the aquarium where Winter, the dolphin with the prosthetic tail, lives.  Liz also shared video clips about Winter, and we got to see how amazing it is that humans helped her gain independence by figuring out a way to make her prosthetic tail!  It's a cool story!


April 15th is National High Fives Day.  We made "High-5" pop ups so we could give each other high fives all day without touching hands.  After Liz's presentation on Dolphin Day, we gave her a big pop up High-Five!  Actually, we gave her 5 of them!


We ended the day with Bette Faye's Zoom session.  Today's guests were the coaches and players from W&M's Women's Basketball team, who gave us an update on what it's been like for them having a season during a pandemic.  We got to meet new players, too!  We can't wait to be able to join them next season (we hope!) for in-person skills events, and to be able to cheer for them at a game.  Those are some of our favorite Arc events that were really missed this year.


Thursday

Why does Devin look so serious not too long after starting the day on Thursday?!  It was because after our dance warm up, we had a lesson about National For Twelves Day (which really has to do with football fans), and the math follow-up activity required some deep thinking!  Devin figured it out, by the way!


We have a new water fountain in the hallway at AFCC, and it's a fancy one that allows us to fill water bottles without touching a thing!  YAY!  No more filling a pitcher with ice water each day so we can keep our personal bottles full.  Xavier demonstrates how easy the new fountain is to use!


With the weather looking doubtful for a picnic and walk at Freedom Park, we made Plan B and headed over to Eaton.  Jorie's birthday is on Saturday, so we gave her a potted plant and a beautiful card we made.  She loved it!  We asked about her plans to celebrate, and she said her husband and daughter are taking her to Charlottesville for an extra-long weekend of hiking, biking, and relaxing.  We hope you have a wonderful birthday weekend, Jorie!


Next, we headed over to James' warehouse where he had lots of boxes of PowerSlide doors for us to load and take back to AFCC.  Ever the happy helper, Devin began loading them onto our vans right away!


Michelle is always a willing helper, too!  She took this box of lenses to the backseat of the van so we could fit more of the door boxes in the back.


By now there was a bit of drizzle coming down, so we knew a park visit would have to wait for another day.  Lilly cheered us up by taking selfies with the camera!  This one is great, but where is our friend, Annmarie?!


Here she is!  She forgot to work her way to the front for the other selfie...and since she's a little vertically challenged, we couldn't see her!


"High Fives" for James from us!  April 15th is National High Fives Day, and he certainly deserves them for all he does for the AoA's vocational program!


We decided to go back to AFCC for lunch and Choice Time, since it was raining.  Today's group is so chill, they didn't mind.  They were just passing the time anyway until we had yoga with KILEY!  πŸ’™


There she is!  That's Kiley on the top left.  She was one of our yoga instructors when we used to visit Studio South.  She relocated to Minnesota early in 2020 to be closer to family and attend graduate school.  We miss her!


Kiley has kept in touch with us and still remembers everyone's names!  Abraham couldn't stay still on the floor when he saw her, and ran up to the computer to say, "hi."  She called him "dapper" in his gray sweater!


Kevin was Zooming from home and his mom, Debbie, sent this picture with the comment, "Someone's happy to see Kiley!"  That's right, Kevin and Abraham...we were ALL happy to see her!


After chatting for a few minutes to catch up, we were led through a quiet and relaxing, yet energizing, session with Kiley.  She played soft music and talked us through the gentle moves just like she used to do when we visited her at the studio.  Here's a screen shot of us stretching.  That's Nancy whose face was out of camera range.  She met Kiley for the first time today, and loved this session.  Yoga is one of Nancy's favorite Arc activities.


In this short clip, you can hear Kiley's calm and soothing instructions.  Having to do yoga via Zoom isn't ideal, but Kiley made it work beautifully for our gang!  The best part was she kept her eye on them, while she was teaching, and provided positive feedback to each one individually. πŸ’šπŸ’›πŸ’œ


Kiley sent us this screenshot she took at the end.  Look at all of our peaceful and beautiful smiles!  Thank you, Kiley, for your time, energy, and love today.  We were thrilled to see you and get the chance to practice yoga together again.  Your style is just perfect for us, and your kindness and sincerity shine through.  We loved it and look forward to another visit with you!


Friday

Today was an active one!  We enjoyed DJ Alexis playing our favorite tunes during our dance warm up, and then we got busy working on PowerSlide Door assembly for Eaton.  Devin unpacked and Kate inserted lens plates.  These are the first two steps!


Alexis and Nan added 4 labels to the inside of each door - step 3.  Step 4 is the insertion of screws and nuts to hold the lens in place.  Xavier and Michelle manned that table today.  One of Abraham's many tasks today was transferring the doors from one table to the next.  


This was Michelle's first time working on PowerSlide Doors.  Xavier showed her the ropes, and she took off!  We heard she gets her great work ethic from her late Grampy, who many of us knew and can vouch for what a hard-working man he was! πŸ’™


Annmarie had to handle sorting all by herself today, and she did it with a smile!  She's a good worker, too!  (ALL of our guys are!)


We also needed Abraham to work on inventory.  Using a counting sheet as his guide, he was able to count out 10 screws which were then placed in a small plastic bag.  Jorie said they need a small crate full of bags with 10 screws in each, so Abraham got us off to a good start.  Behind him, Carol completes steps 5 and 6 of door assembly by tightening the screws and packing the doors back into big boxes.  When we work on doors, we really miss having all 15 of our team members around because the rest of us have to double up on tasks!  😎


It's never all work and no play at the AoA.  Our morning movement was outside on a beautiful sunny morning.  Annmarie and Michelle each had a Frisbee, which they took turns tossing to each other. 


Have you heard of the "Walking Dead?"  Well, we have the "Walking Alive" and they took several laps around the blacktop!


Abraham absolutely loves shooting hoops, and doesn't mind if no one else wants to join him...


...because he knows his friends will be there if he needs their help!  The net on this hoop is loose, and sometimes the ball gets stuck in it.  Thanks, Devin, for the release!


When we went back inside, we finished the PowerSlide Doors and learned we had done 8 boxes, which is 96 doors!  We're so efficient!

For lunch, we had Gdad's bbq, which he made for Sam's birthday on Wednesday.  Lisa reheated it in the Nina ("low and slow") and it made some tasty sandwiches.  We forgot to get a picture of our delicious lunch, but we got this video when we had birthday pie!  Thanks again to Sam's family for treating us this week, and to Gdad for cooking the bbq.  We're glad Sam had a birthday!


After that scrumptious meal, we took advantage of the empty gym since students are not at school on Fridays.  We're not sure why the wall was up, but 1/2 of the gym is enough for us to take turns shooting hoops and kicking the soccer ball around.  Yes, we multitask, even in the gym! (Abraham was picked up early but would have loved gym time!)


Our active day ended with a new episode of yoga with Jaime.  Her message to us this week was about positive thinking!  We're pretty good at that, but it was good to hear a reinforcing message.  


Looks like another great week has come to an end.  Next week we'll celebrate Kate's birthday, but what else is on the agenda?  Here's a sneak peek!

Tuesday / Thursday:  Happy Birthday to Kate on the 22nd, so we will celebrate with her favorite meal, pasta and salad, with garlic toast for lunch!  National Garlic Day is the 19th, so perfect timing!  We'll also continue working on Eaton.  We will Zoom, too.  Tuesday's topic will be an old favorite, Disney Trivia games, and on Thursday we'll celebrate Kate's birthday and play a round of Earth Day Bingo, too!

Wednesday / Friday:  Once again, we hope the weather will cooperate so we can enjoy the outdoors while it's not too hot.  We plan to visit one of our favorites, New Quarter Park, for games, birdwatching, walking, and a picnic.  Please bring a bag lunch.  We'll return to AFCC in time for afternoon yoga, so don't forget to dress to stretch, too!

Happy Weekend,

Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang

Reminder!!!!

The British Car Show is coming up on Saturday, April 24th at High Street!  Hope you can join us!  Click on the pic for a link to more information!